If you are having to rent a car for an upcoming trip, you probably already know that it can be quite expensive to do so. Prices have come down some from the pandemic highs but they still are not where they were before the pandemic.
You can go to sites like Booking.com, Expedia and others to try to find a good deal on a rental car. There is a site that is lesser known that will do the work for you when trying to find the best deal.
The name of the site is AutoSlash. AutoSlash will shop the car rental marketplaces and they will use discount codes, membership perks and coupons to try to find the best deal possible.
What is AutoSlash?
With sites like Expedia and Booking.com, you are renting the car directly. AutoSlash is a site that serves as a search engine for rental cars.
They maintain a large database of car rental coupons and discount codes. They search the internet constantly looking for discounts. Once someone requests a quote, their system runs an analysis and determines the best discounts based on the specific rental, memberships and other discounts.
Since they are doing a deeper dive because of information that you provide them, you don’t get a quote right away. It can take a few minutes up to 15 minutes before they send you some quotes.
If you pick the pay later feature when booking a car, you can supply them some information about your booking and they will track the price of your rental. They will let you know if the price of your rental car has dropped.
Have you booked a car already? No problem, you can still use the same tracking feature mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Want to do some searching on your own and use certain coupons and promotions in your booking? AutoSlash has coupons available for you to use.
So, you can see AutoSlash is not a one trick pony. Let’s take a look at how to use AutoSlash.
How to Get a Quote for a Rental Car with AutoSlash
The first step is choosing if you are picking your car up at the airport or at a non-airport destination.
Next, you have to choose if you are returning your car to the same location or not.
You will then put in your pick up and drop off dates and times.
After that, you will select what type of vehicle that you want. If there is more than one style of car, you will need to do a separate search.
For international markets, AutoSlash gives you an option to choose manual or automatic transmission.
The next two parts are where AutoSlash is different then other sites. First, you check the credit cards that you have.
Next, you will select the following.
- Memberships that you have like AAA and etc.
- Frequent Flyer programs you belong to.
- Wholesale Clubs that you are a member of.
Finally, AutoSlash asks for your name and email so that they can send the quote to you.
After you submit your name and email, you will be able to edit anything that is incorrect.
If everything is correct, you can submit the form.
How to Book a Rental Car Using AutoSlash
You will get an email telling you that your quotes are ready. For this example, the email took around 5 minutes. Clicking on the link will take you to the page which shows you all of your options.
There will usually be options for you to pay later with Priceline or pay now with AutoSlash. This search only had the pay later with Priceline option.
If you select the pay later option, you won’t have to put in any credit card information. You will also be able to cancel the reservation at any time. You will have to put in credit card information if you select the pay now option.
How to Use AutoSlash to Track Rental Car Prices
Once you have reserved your car with the “Pay Later” feature, you can go to “Track a Rental” at the top of the home page of AutoSlash.
You will need to supply your name, the name of the rental car company, the confirmation number, the pickup date and the price of the reservation. It takes a minute or so to fill out all of the information.
You will get an email from AutoSlash about them tracking your reservation.
You can click on a link in the email to only get price drops from select companies.
If you happen to get an email from AutoSlash that they have found a lower rate, you can book the new priced car.
You should follow the steps below after you booked the new car.
- Cancel the car that has the higher price.
- You will want to cancel the tracker of the higher priced car or they will continue to send you price drops.
- Fill out a new form to have AutoSlash track the lower priced car.
You can also use this feature if you don’t originally use AutoSlash to book a rental car. The nice thing about this feature is that you don’t need to do any of the work to keep on top of the prices of cars.
Rental Car Coupons
If you would rather book rentals on your own or need to, AutoSlash offers coupons on their site for major rental car companies. The coupons are rental car company specific and can be used when booking directly with the company.
There is a drop down option at the top of the page if you have a specific company in mind when looking for coupons.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to booking rental cars when you travel, I believe that the more tools that you have in your tool belt the better. AutoSlash is a great tool to have when trying to find the best rental car deals.
Is AutoSlash always going to have the lowest price in the market? No, but they do come up with the lowest price more times than not.
If you want to learn more ways to look for rental car deals, you can read my post “How to Find the Best Car Rental Deals.”
You can also go to my blog page for other travel related posts.